Real API data in your mockups made as easy as lorem ipsum.
Paint By JSON is a Figma plugin that enables designers to populate their designs with real, live API data as simply as inserting lorem ipsum. It falls into the category of design-to-code tools and is specifically built for UI/UX designers, product designers, and design engineers who need to create data-driven mockups. The core value is replacing static mockups with dynamic, production-like content, allowing teams to pressure-test their designs against actual names, lengths, and edge cases before development begins. This plugin transforms the typical Figma workflow by connecting directly to any API endpoint, bringing the same data that the product will ultimately ship into the design environment.
The concrete problem Paint By JSON solves is the disconnect between static design mockups and real data. Traditional design tools rely on placeholder text, dummy names, and arbitrary image dimensions that rarely match production data. This mismatch leads to layout breaks, truncation issues, and misaligned expectations during design-to-code handoff. Designers spend hours re-mocking screenshots to reflect updated API responses, while engineers discover edge cases only after implementation. Paint By JSON eliminates this gap by allowing designers to connect Figma directly to the same endpoints the product uses, ensuring that every frame accurately represents the data it will eventually display. This saves time, reduces rework, and fosters a single source of truth between design and engineering.
The first major feature group is the Palette system. A Palette stores an entire API endpoint configuration, including the URL, authentication headers, and JSON-to-layer mappings. Once saved, a Palette can be applied to any frame with a single click, eliminating the need to re-wire mappings for every screen. This feature works by letting the user paste a GET endpoint, add necessary headers or auth, preview the JSON response, then bind specific JSON paths to layer names in Figma. The benefit is consistency across files and team libraries; when the API changes, designers update the Palette once and all frames using it repaint automatically. Palettes can be shared across files and devices (with cloud sync in the Free tier) and are the central mechanism for managing data sources in the plugin.
The second major feature is the Transform system, called “Transform on the way in.” Raw JSON values often need formatting before they are suitable for display—for example, converting a price number into a currency string, truncating a long product name, or parsing a date into a readable format. Paint By JSON provides built-in transforms for truncation, currency formatting, date parsing, mathematical operations, and even conditional if/then/else logic. These transforms can be chained together, allowing multiple modifications to a single value before it lands on the canvas. The benefit is that designers can control the exact presentation of data without altering the underlying API response, making it easy to adapt the same data source for different contexts such as a product card versus a detailed view.
Publisher
A
admin
Launch Date2026-06-02
Pricingfree
Domain Authority
Ahrefs DR2/100